In December, most people are reviewing the best and worst of 2023, but Vanilla Ice would rather reflect on the 1990s. There is cause to believe this is his favorite hobby. In July 2021, the rapper told TMZ that he believed the ’90s is “the greatest decade ever before computers ruined the world.” Earlier this month, during an interview with VladTV, he revealed he knows “too much” about the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur.
Fifty-one minutes into the same VladTV interview, Vanilla Ice casually mentioned the late, infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar “coming to my house” in the 1990s. He confirmed he “hung out with Pablo Escobar many, many times” as well as “everybody from Cocaine Cowboys.”
Ice continued:
“We were all friends. […] They would land helicopters in my house constantly on Star Island, come into my house. I had food just for them in the refrigerators. I had my maids and everybody and all them clean up after they left, and they would take me in the helicopter. We’d go to these great events and race boats and look at all the cool stuff that they were making. And I never questioned [because] we didn’t have Google. I don’t know who these people are. I thought they were businessman.”
Naturally, TMZ — like all of us — had some followup questions. Vanilla Ice caught up with TMZ Live on Tuesday, December 19, and added further context.
“Pablo was into racing boats, I was into racing boats, and he really did a lot of great things for the boat industry because the money he spread around to, I guess, traffic the drugs also spread into the racing boat community,” Vanilla Ice said. He also clarified that he was mostly “clueless” about the nefarious behavior of his unlikely friends. Watch the full clip here.